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Review that sums up CO pretty much
Yunbei
Member Posts: 898
memetic-hazard.blogspot.com/2009/08/champions-online-review-part-1.html
Its more or less how I felt about CO in the end. Its not entirely without fun, action was fun a while and yes making those very personalized chars is also cool. It has potential, as VG did. Whether it can use it must be seen. I think it COULD become something really good, but not now. In 6 months hard work maybe.
It is just an OPINION. In games it's much like with food, you can't really argue over tastes, so try to be calm when formulating your different opinion. 
Comments
A review that just spouts hatred. Pretty much the opposite of what my opinion is.
It is a bit bitter, on that I agree. I had my fun, but too little and to shallow, and this review IMVPO explains well why. But when you say CO is great for you, thats fine with me. I still think this review hits some very sensitive spots.
How can you say anything about "potential" when you never played any level 35 content?
I mean I took advantage of the free level 40 bump at close of OB, but I only got to play the Nemesis and UNity stuff at level 40. And i have to say its not the same as the level 10 content. My nemesis was a lizardmen with martial arts and the ranged guys were a bitch with tons of holds and the melee guys would chew through my PFF pretty fast. I guess I had crappy equipment so maybe that is the difference. But they could axe me if I wasn't up on my active defenses.
Anyway the point is you may be right or wrong but there is no way you can actually know, unless you were in CB. Its not even speculation it just plain spouting out stuff.
I mean anyone who played CoH should hopefully understand that Cryptic went with a fairly different content model due to this very complaint. That action is not good enough even if its good. That is why they have pretty large zones with a bunch of quests in addition to some instances/scaled stuff.
If you have not even seen Lemuria zone than why are you even talking about it?
It is a bit bitter, on that I agree. I had my fun, but too little and to shallow, and this review IMVPO explains well why. But when you say CO is great for you, thats fine with me. I still think this review hits some very sensitive spots.
No, this is not a "bit". Every single point is created with pure hatred and dismissiveness. This is the raving of someone who is still butt hurt over ED from CoH. The Jack Emmert hatred is only explained by that. Its peculiarly consistent symptom unique to this syndrome because most people do not a give a flying fuck who Jack Emmert even is and certainly do not throw out accusations of negligence and misdirection in their first sentence. Finally the kicker is that Jack Emmert is not doing the same job as he was on CoH so the accusations he makes about development are clearly from CoH days.
This "review" has no real analysis, it is merely a way to get even for precieved wrongs of the past. Its a hit job.
Its his opinion and I respect it.
I just dont share it. Champions has some problems but they are not insurmountable and the game is solid from the PVE standpoint
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
false.
false, you can level from 9 to 16 faster without doing any missions. However only a minority of people figured this out and yes this was working in CB and in OB.
There are a lot of other inaccuracies or extreme exaggeration in his review. However I only read like 4 paragraphs.
I read the review and all I can say Is ...wow. Just wow. From what he wrote to what I played , well...I wonder if it was the same game? Wow.
Dax
By stating that it is only your opinion and that we should be calm means that you do not stand behind your login but rather know that your review is biased. Posting reviews and especially from a link means that you should be ready to be flamed, and so you should since you completly ignore the fact that the game is on its most early released stage.
What you do is what every other wanabe reviewer does, which is to exagerate to make a point. Reviews should be constructive unless you oppose the game from a proffesional position. If you want people to take your reviews seriously make sure next time you disregard your OPINION and simply state the facts reflecting the general community's viewpoint rather than your own.
I played my max to level 28, made my first Nemesis mission. Yes I wasn't in Lemuria. But really, of a game that has 40 levels, do I have to play to 35 to start having fun?
CO is another very specialized MMO, focussed on action, just as WAR is focussed on PVP or TR was on action. I just found most the game relatively unoriginal. I had some fun at some times, and for a while the action was fun too, but overall it was, as the reviewer said; it would be the best F2P microtransaction game, but for $15 per month there just is not enough in it. A lightweight as I perceive it. I don't want to infuriate you, but don't you think a lot of people overlooked the shallowness of the game itself because of the cool, personal chars they could make? Take that away and what is left seems pretty little to me.
I mean, I really hope they work on it. Expand it, deepen it. But it has way too many flaws now. Like the many loadscreens. In that they did NOT learn a drat from CoH complaints. With the many "shards" of each game and doors you often enough see that loadscreen. Heck even if you die and respawn in the same place!
Or how cooperation is pointless due to a) powers of the chars don't add, they are just more numbers, b) no servers kinda kill the "I have seen you before" feeling and c) mishs are usually solved fast, nothing takes time or lasts, so you hurry from mish 1 to 2 to 3. Rarely seen such an unsocial, un-coop game like CO. And don't tell me it's because of the beta. I have been to betas and there always was more cooperation. Not that teamwork made sense when everyone is a jack-of-all-trades and you never know WHAT powers the others have. it can be a group of 5 tanks. There can be a healer. Or not. How can you build teamwork strategy with this chaotic power system? Its like building on quicksand.
false.
false, you can level from 9 to 16 faster without doing any missions. However only a minority of people figured this out and yes this was working in CB and in OB.
There are a lot of other inaccuracies or extreme exaggeration in his review. However I only read like 4 paragraphs.
What do you mean by mission not being best way for xp? I found mob xp to be pretty low, unless I needto grind Master Villains?
Also up to 16 Ithink it is important to switch between desert and canada or do canada first. I did canada first on one toon and desert first on the other and then switched to other. the one that did desert first was like 2 levels behind and I couldn't figure out why, but it was kind of painful.
I was extreamly thrilled when I was invited to closed beta and dear god was I disappointed. Everything about this game made me angry. The character creation was a huge letdown (costume parts were taken right out of CoH!!) and the graphics just plain ugly. The cell shading is a joke, I've seen it done better in a Nintendo DS game.
And the lore. My god when I did the first instance (the one you do at the end of the tutorial area) and I heard "Black Talon is an ally of DOCTOR DESTROYER" I burst out laughing. How can I take a game seriously when it doesn't take it itself?
The combat system was boring, quests uninspired AND boring and the whole game seamed more like something you'd expect from a F2P game. Well, maby not THAT bad. But close...
I played my max to level 28, made my first Nemesis mission. Yes I wasn't in Lemuria. But really, of a game that has 40 levels, do I have to play to 35 to start having fun?
CO is another very specialized MMO, focussed on action, just as WAR is focussed on PVP or TR was on action. I just found most the game relatively unoriginal. I had some fun at some times, and for a while the action was fun too, but overall it was, as the reviewer said; it would be the best F2P microtransaction game, but for $15 per month there just is not enough in it. A lightweight as I perceive it. I don't want to infuriate you, but don't you think a lot of people overlooked the shallowness of the game itself because of the cool, personal chars they could make? Take that away and what is left seems pretty little to me.
I mean, I really hope they work on it. Expand it, deepen it. But it has way too many flaws now. Like the many loadscreens. In that they did NOT learn a drat from CoH complaints. With the many "shards" of each game and doors you often enough see that loadscreen. Heck even if you die and respawn in the same place!
Or how cooperation is pointless due to a) powers of the chars don't add, they are just more numbers, b) no servers kinda kill the "I have seen you before" feeling and c) mishs are usually solved fast, nothing takes time or lasts, so you hurry from mish 1 to 2 to 3. Rarely seen such an unsocial, un-coop game like CO. And don't tell me it's because of the beta. I have been to betas and there always was more cooperation. Not that teamwork made sense when everyone is a jack-of-all-trades and you never know WHAT powers the others have. it can be a group of 5 tanks. There can be a healer. Or not. How can you build teamwork strategy with this chaotic power system? Its like building on quicksand.
I can understand where you are coming from where you want known configurations for better group dynamics. CO has roles but whether people will use them or even have a build that can adequately take advantage of that is up in the air and most people will not take the trouble to not make it a mess (IMO).
But do me a favor re-read your response here and then ask yourself how can CO be both "original" and enforcing a Holy-trinity style gameplay all at the same time. Because that is exactly what you asked.
I mean CoH has great teaming, but I dare you to go to the Defender board and use the word "healer". Seriously I dare you.
IN the end though alot of your concerns about reaming and builds has already been hashed over in Guild Wars. I am not saying you are right opr wrong as the issue is more complex than that. But I will say this is an old argument that is pretty much just repeating anything various Guild Wars forums have already gone through to exhaustion.
In the end you can never get away fomr this rule : "PUGs suck". The only question is how they will suck and perhaps whether you even care if they do. Sometimes I join PUGs with the full anticipation and amusement at the eventual comedy of errors.
I can understand wanting something along the lines of a fairly long (say 1 hour) dungeon crawl type thing or cool task force whatever. I do not know if that exists or not or whether it fits the style of this game. But once again it is saying a game is not original because it did not do something that is not original. And while you find such things "Deep" because you find them absorbing, some people merely find them boring. I personally get the most depth of feeling from interesting character power choice with interesting interactions.
Throwing around shallow because it does not have a particular style of content that you personally enjoy is not only shaky fotting because its in the eye of the beholder. It is also fairly confusing when you consider that the character creation and skill choice + crafting + equipment usage is quite complex and deep. You will just create an argument based on misunderstanding.
Because no game is to be taken seriously, it's entertainment, not a thought provoking change your life experience, and it's meant to be cheesy just as most comics are.
Cell shading yes was horrible but fortunately you can turn it off, you obvisouly didn't find that option, I found the graphics after that setting to be far superior to CoH and other MMO's I have played lately, plus the huge amount of customisation was amazing, once you started to tinker with the system is suddenly opened up to a infinite amount of characters, I believe it's far better than CoH's as I was able to create characters that I couldn't before.
Well the combat system isnt anything to write home about but then again I haven't played any MMO lately that has ground breaking exciting combat, but the quests where on the same lvl as you'd expect to find in games such as WoW/EQ and other PvE MMO's so again nothing special there, then again there hasn't been anything ground breaking in that area either for years.
F2P though hmm I wish it was, I also wish WoW and all the others where F2P aswell as they should be, would make for a more interesting MMO market place if they all had microtransactions to create revenue by.
Even after the exp nerf there were a few specific mobs that gave over 14k exp per kill. Might be nerfed by retail, but the mobs are quite hard(legendary). Also the developers already stated that experience nerf was nerfed
in the latest patch notes. As in it exp gain was tweaked to be higher than it was a few days ago, maybe not as high as a week ago.
This is actually my biggest concern with the game. The pendulum of changes to xp and skills seems to be swinging a little too wildly. Some stuff definitely needed (or needs) changes. They just put a 6 sec CD on thunderbolt lunge and that needed it as I was perpetually backing up and doing a really nasty flying kick because it hit harder than my normal attacks and only cost 1 energy and had some KD etc etc. But i mean this is put in like at a few hours before the extended beta "ended".
I think there will be a lot of little inconsistencies and certain OP powers hanging around for a while. And people do not really want a game to be a flux, they want stability. And they do not want too much cookie cutter due to oversight on power implications or xp gain.
Thats the reason why I don't have a problem with it also. Every one has an opinion and not all opinions are gonna be what I say. As long as people don't think there opinion is better then anyone elses and tries to make it sound like it there opinion is the only one that matters. I have no problem with it.
false.
false, you can level from 9 to 16 faster without doing any missions. However only a minority of people figured this out and yes this was working in CB and in OB.
There are a lot of other inaccuracies or extreme exaggeration in his review. However I only read like 4 paragraphs.
What do you mean by mission not being best way for xp? I found mob xp to be pretty low, unless I needto grind Master Villains?
Also up to 16 Ithink it is important to switch between desert and canada or do canada first. I did canada first on one toon and desert first on the other and then switched to other. the one that did desert first was like 2 levels behind and I couldn't figure out why, but it was kind of painful.
doing the open quests gives good xp and is an alternative to just doing the regular quests. They are pretty fun to do esp if you setup a group
You also might be able to do instances once you have unlocked them with a group repeatedly. Not sure how they are with xp but I read somewhere that taking a group into an instance would automatically make it tougher.
---
Ethion
I agree with the repeatability of game being not so attractive because you make an entirely different character with different path/powers and have to repeate the same thing you did last time. Other than that. The game is Great fun. The physics are more fun than killing people. Try swing or the flying disk and thats a game in itself. Its not a poke the elf game, its a kick ass big powers action mmo. I didnt even know they had a twitter option. That is probably to update whoever is following what server you are on, so thats cryptic thinking again. The levels with powers, levels to powers and skills and your main focus is great. You Actually have to think rather than just buy everything available at your level (other mmo). CO you have so many choices and each one will effect the other. If you like choices this is the game. I was afraid of losing the ability to choose similar to coh but co figured it out great, adding benifit as well. Hopefully they have expansions and stuff for the world. And who cares if its a West world rip off? Thats great. Unless your burnt out on watching West world I dont think its a negative. Hell I havent seen westworld since it came out, 70's or 80's? Hell your gonna have people bashing the game and otherwise. If you like to play monks and talk to wizards, elfs and goblins then you might not like the game. If you want a variety of Bad Assness and Talent challenging action in an mmo. I would check this out. The talent challenging takes effect when you opt for the powers that take practice. Besides the Travel powers like swing, disk riding, etc. that take practice to get good at but once you get the hang of something like swinging while fighting the animations blow anything else out away. Other powers have multiple keys to get it working killer. Try it if your interested in this kind of game and I doubt you will be dissapointed.
This post is intentionally written as to not make any sense what so ever. Thank You Very Much.
false.
false, you can level from 9 to 16 faster without doing any missions. However only a minority of people figured this out and yes this was working in CB and in OB.
There are a lot of other inaccuracies or extreme exaggeration in his review. However I only read like 4 paragraphs.
What do you mean by mission not being best way for xp? I found mob xp to be pretty low, unless I needto grind Master Villains?
Also up to 16 Ithink it is important to switch between desert and canada or do canada first. I did canada first on one toon and desert first on the other and then switched to other. the one that did desert first was like 2 levels behind and I couldn't figure out why, but it was kind of painful.
doing the open quests gives good xp and is an alternative to just doing the regular quests. They are pretty fun to do esp if you setup a group
You also might be able to do instances once you have unlocked them with a group repeatedly. Not sure how they are with xp but I read somewhere that taking a group into an instance would automatically make it tougher.
To actually complete the "open quests" you need a group which is tough to find when most players are just jumping around going to the next mission. He makes a good point though, as I've said before, after you've been through twice, thats pretty much it... and right now its true... in fact, if you don't go to MC at 14 and do all the desert missions (or canada missions) instead, you really only miss out on the original crisis zones... most other missions you can still do. So really 1 and 1/4 times would yield all the content available if you planned it out right.
Not saying its a bad thing, just pointing it out.
I played my max to level 28, made my first Nemesis mission. Yes I wasn't in Lemuria. But really, of a game that has 40 levels, do I have to play to 35 to start having fun?
CO is another very specialized MMO, focussed on action, just as WAR is focussed on PVP or TR was on action. I just found most the game relatively unoriginal. I had some fun at some times, and for a while the action was fun too, but overall it was, as the reviewer said; it would be the best F2P microtransaction game, but for $15 per month there just is not enough in it. A lightweight as I perceive it. I don't want to infuriate you, but don't you think a lot of people overlooked the shallowness of the game itself because of the cool, personal chars they could make? Take that away and what is left seems pretty little to me.
I mean, I really hope they work on it. Expand it, deepen it. But it has way too many flaws now. Like the many loadscreens. In that they did NOT learn a drat from CoH complaints. With the many "shards" of each game and doors you often enough see that loadscreen. Heck even if you die and respawn in the same place!
Or how cooperation is pointless due to a) powers of the chars don't add, they are just more numbers, b) no servers kinda kill the "I have seen you before" feeling and c) mishs are usually solved fast, nothing takes time or lasts, so you hurry from mish 1 to 2 to 3. Rarely seen such an unsocial, un-coop game like CO. And don't tell me it's because of the beta. I have been to betas and there always was more cooperation. Not that teamwork made sense when everyone is a jack-of-all-trades and you never know WHAT powers the others have. it can be a group of 5 tanks. There can be a healer. Or not. How can you build teamwork strategy with this chaotic power system? Its like building on quicksand.
I can understand where you are coming from where you want known configurations for better group dynamics. CO has roles but whether people will use them or even have a build that can adequately take advantage of that is up in the air and most people will not take the trouble to not make it a mess (IMO).
But do me a favor re-read your response here and then ask yourself how can CO be both "original" and enforcing a Holy-trinity style gameplay all at the same time. Because that is exactly what you asked.
I mean CoH has great teaming, but I dare you to go to the Defender board and use the word "healer". Seriously I dare you.
IN the end though alot of your concerns about reaming and builds has already been hashed over in Guild Wars. I am not saying you are right opr wrong as the issue is more complex than that. But I will say this is an old argument that is pretty much just repeating anything various Guild Wars forums have already gone through to exhaustion.
In the end you can never get away fomr this rule : "PUGs suck". The only question is how they will suck and perhaps whether you even care if they do. Sometimes I join PUGs with the full anticipation and amusement at the eventual comedy of errors.
I can understand wanting something along the lines of a fairly long (say 1 hour) dungeon crawl type thing or cool task force whatever. I do not know if that exists or not or whether it fits the style of this game. But once again it is saying a game is not original because it did not do something that is not original. And while you find such things "Deep" because you find them absorbing, some people merely find them boring. I personally get the most depth of feeling from interesting character power choice with interesting interactions.
Throwing around shallow because it does not have a particular style of content that you personally enjoy is not only shaky fotting because its in the eye of the beholder. It is also fairly confusing when you consider that the character creation and skill choice + crafting + equipment usage is quite complex and deep. You will just create an argument based on misunderstanding.
As I said, it is by and large a matter of taste. Some like Shakespeare, some prefer Scary Movie. I don't say anything is greater, but surely Shakespeare is a bit more... deep. For instance, I love to delve into those 2+ hours dungeons or what. Things which are not done in 5 min. I also love to have a role. Like tank, or healer or whatever. Sure, I also love to have the ability to specialize, but as one who prefers teamwork I think that needs some limitation and NOT everyone can do everything, because that makes cooperation pretty much impossible.
Granted, this huge selection of powers is wondeful to tinker with, but the chances you make a bad combination is very high, and most important, it makes cooperation very tricky. I never had the slightest idea what my PVE or PVP teammates could do and what they could not, save in the very rough after some time. Yes I belive in classes. But a game can still be original, but not in such fundamentals which just are IMVPO the only that REALLY work in creating effective teamplay. I know, today everyone wants to be soloist, the perfect well rounded being who can do all alone, but I rather prefer to work as part of a team and have my role than play lonely jack-of-all-trades. A MMO can be original in many other aspects. And there is a not so fine line between making some nice little things and the totally cheesy CO quests. Like the LOTRO Book quests, esp. the higher level ones. They were not breathtakingly new, but fascinating and well done.
Because no game is to be taken seriously, it's entertainment, not a thought provoking change your life experience, and it's meant to be cheesy just as most comics are.
Cell shading yes was horrible but fortunately you can turn it off, you obvisouly didn't find that option, I found the graphics after that setting to be far superior to CoH and other MMO's I have played lately, plus the huge amount of customisation was amazing, once you started to tinker with the system is suddenly opened up to a infinite amount of characters, I believe it's far better than CoH's as I was able to create characters that I couldn't before.
Well the combat system isnt anything to write home about but then again I haven't played any MMO lately that has ground breaking exciting combat, but the quests where on the same lvl as you'd expect to find in games such as WoW/EQ and other PvE MMO's so again nothing special there, then again there hasn't been anything ground breaking in that area either for years.
F2P though hmm I wish it was, I also wish WoW and all the others where F2P aswell as they should be, would make for a more interesting MMO market place if they all had microtransactions to create revenue by.
Ofcourse no game has to be taken seriously. If you look at WoW which has one of the best lores in video game industry, it has quests with references to pop culture, music, movies and so on. But those are just references. Little cheries on top of a huge strawbery cake. In CO however the entire lore is a one huge parody. It's uninteresting, uninspired and filled with clishees. Even City of Heroes had a fairly interesting story witch made the game a lot more interesting and fun to play.
And yes I didn't know you could switch off the cell shading. If I knew I would have done it right away. But since the game didn't apeal to me on so many other levels I won't be trying it out anymore. I hope for all of you who bought and enjoy the game that it will lead a long and happy full server life.